


fill my lungs with sweetness (and fill my head with you)

by notorious



Category: Motherland: Fort Salem (TV)
Genre: F/F, mmmm this is ... very soft, that's literally all it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:20:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24935182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notorious/pseuds/notorious
Summary: the first time abigail sees tally it's all over.
Relationships: Abigail Bellweather/Tally Craven
Comments: 7
Kudos: 34





	fill my lungs with sweetness (and fill my head with you)

**Author's Note:**

> hiya. here's a thing. it's short, it's cute. i dunno what else it is. title's from bloom by the paper kites. this is unedited bc that's my brand.

You remember the day you met Tally because nothing was ever the same after she happened into your life.

You saw her across the garden at a High Atlantic brunch and your world cracked right down the middle. Sidled up to a little brunette with blue eyes wild as the ocean, you thought she was the skies and the heavens and the light on the horizon all rolled into one. Her eyes crinkled when she laughed, your heart soared when it turned to a giggle and she hid her glee behind her friend’s shoulder The midday sun caught the red of her hair and you’d never seen a better color. You watched her bite into a strawberry knew she wasn’t from these parts; you didn’t care, you liked that amongst the prim and proper she didn’t seem to care to cater to them, and although you were across the way stuck between your mother and Anacostia and their talk of academy statistics you didn’t think you were above kicking off your heels and sprinting to her. 

Didn’t know her name, but you saw the halo above her head and the wings sprout from her back and decided you quite liked how it felt to be in the presence of a saint. No one else could have seen it, surely, because the party progressed as if there wasn’t in attendance a creature of celestial descent.

Petra told you to keep the champagne to a minimum that day — you were still too young to pick up a bottle at a package store, after all, but you were three glasses deep when you snagged another two to take to the angel with the red hair and the smile that rivaled the sun.

Then you saw him: Gerit Buttonwood, sneaking back into the garden from a side door on the west wearing a dopey grin and tugging up his zipper so slow it seemed he didn’t care who saw him. And you know how he used to drink at these functions, so you knew, too, that he probably  _ didn’t _ care. Then you saw Hilary Saint in tow, straightening her dress and kissing Gerit on the shoulder before slipping back into the party. You wouldn’t have cared if Gerit hadn’t made a beeline for the girl you had your eye on.

It hurt to watch.

Gerit surprised her from behind, hands on her sides, tucking his chin over her shoulder to press a kiss on a rosy cheek as she beamed. You didn’t miss the change in her friend, the brunette with the blue eyes that were no longer bright and enticing but hardened and dark, who straightened her back and greeted your old friend with a terse smile and what must’ve been an “excuse me” if her timely exit was anything to go by.

Didn’t matter to you how open relationships tended to be in this society, didn’t matter that you’d known Gerit since childhood and your loyalty should have been his. Something grabbed at your heart and pulled in that moment, something you weren’t terribly familiar with — a gut feeling, perhaps — and somehow you knew.

One, that she didn't know.

And two, that you had to get her away from him.

…

“Remember when we met?” Tally asks you over breakfast.

You’ve got your nose in a book with a quarter cup of blonde roast in your system and all you do is hum, pulling your eyes from the pages to peer at her. “What’s that?” you ask, although you know, but you know, too, that Tally loves telling the story.

“Garden party at your aunt’s house,” she mutters with a nostalgic little smile. You always wonder at how she doesn’t let the downfall of that fateful day sully the good that came out of it. “Last time I ever let Gerit have me on his arm.”

“Three years ago,” you say, closing your book on a thumb and scooting closer. “I remember.”

Tally reaches for your hand and you let her take it. When she flips it over and cradles it between her own, thumbs tracing the distinct lines crossing your palm, your heart melts a little and you wonder how you’ve got any of it left at all with everything she’s done to turn you to mush. Magic, maybe.

“You were drunk,” she starts in again, grinning, and —

“I was  _ not _ ,” you protest, but you’re smiling too.

“Sure,” she says, folding your fingers over, making your hand a fist, lifting it to press her smile up against your knuckles. “So you  _ weren’t _ drunk, let’s say, but you still came and whisked me away from my friends like we’d known each other ages.”

You nod, add, “We’d never met.”

“You didn’t even know my name,” Tally says.

“I knew that you were the most magnificent creature I’d ever seen,” you tell her.

Up until that day, three years ago, you’d never truly considered the magnitude of gravity. It hit you like a freight train with God at the controls. You remember understanding it in its entirety after that, you remember understanding a divine pull, and you remember thinking it might hurt to ever be away from Tally.

“All I knew was you were a Bellweather.”

You remember how she used to say that name: with nothing more than the sweet lilt of her voice, soft and curious, still growing accustomed to High Atlantic ethics. When she says it now you hear pride in her tone, but it isn’t pride for what your family means to history. It’s pride for  _ you _ ; pride for all you’ve done to become your own woman, independent and headstrong, dedicated and driven without the expectations of your family name looming over your shoulder any longer.

Took you a damn while to realize you could redefine what it meant to be a Bellweather in today’s world, took you even longer to figure out what exactly that would even look like. Tally helped. Tally watered you like a flower and rejoiced when you grew, bloomed, and flourished. She never left your side.

“And what are you now?” she asks, cheeky, reaching to tuck a strand of hair back behind your ear.

A grin as smug as it is sincere slides home on your face, reaching your eyes and making your cheeks hurt with the strain. Tally loves that smile, and you love Tally.

“Bellweather-Craven,” you say with more pride than you’d ever announced your name before she came into your life, “the first of my kind.”

“And you’re mine,” she mumbles.

Tally plucks the book from your hands and you let her. When she rises from her seat it’s only to sink down on your lap, arms draped over your shoulders, fingertips drifting the column of your throat. She fits right into you, you’re two pieces of a whole, and you’ve never loved anyone more.

“Lucky me,” you tease, squeezing her side.

“Remember what you said to me at the party?” She tilts her head, examining your face, gaze drifting from your lips to your nose to the slope of your jaw and finally on up to meet your eyes. You see your entire life before you, in Tally.

You hum, lifting your chin, prompting her on.

“‘ _ Don’t worry about it, sweetheart, _ ’” she starts.

You finish for her, “‘ _ But this is a rescue mission _ .’”

“Didn’t even know I needed to be rescued until I met you.”

“Sweet Tally,” you mumble, coasting your hands right on up until your palms meet her jaw and you cradle her face like a precious heirloom. “You’re the one who rescued yourself. I just gave you a little nudge.”

Tally laughs and you melt all over again.

“‘Little nudge’ is the  _ biggest _ understatement you’ve ever made.”

“You know I suck at subtle.”

“You really do.”

But she likes it, you think, or else she would’ve had your head for renting out the entire local botanical garden for six hours last year so Tally could frolic in peace. She wouldn’t have minded people around, no, you know that, but you wanted a sacred moment. You wanted to remember nothing but Tally and the trees and the flowers and the creek that ran through the middle. You didn’t want any distractions, any opportunity for mishaps. You wanted it to be perfect, for perfect was the least that Tally deserved.

“Can’t help it,” you say, and then she’s kissing you and you’re falling all over again.

“When you proposed,” she mumbles against your mouth, grinning, and pulling back to thumb over your cheeks and lock onto your eyes, “in the gardens. You emptied out the whole place. You manufactured timelessness in that moment.”

That’s exactly what you did.

And you’d done it all over again the day you married her beneath a black cherry tree in that same garden.

Tally was worth far more than anything High Atlantic society had to offer. Your mother hated when you began to understand that, but you remember how it felt to find a fraction of freedom. So you held on. You’re still holding on. And Tally’s holding you, too, just as tight, because by some miracle the sweetest girl to ever walk the earth sees something worthy in you. You’ve known for a while now, but you think about it often, one single little thing: Tally Craven is  _ everything _ .

So.

“For you,” you tell her, “I would do anything.”

**Author's Note:**

> lemme know what u think if u are so inclined or catch me on twitter @jackassdotjpg i hang out there sometimes


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